Mormon Church's City Creek Project Now at 2-3 Billion Dollars - March 2012
by wjexmo Mar 2012
Jesus finally has a mall worthy of his presence.
God has always instructed his peoples to build shopping centers.
[Note: Jan. 2013 update. The Mormon Church's City Creek Center shopping mall and condo development is at 2-3 billion dollars per Salt Lake Chamber's Can-Do Coalition. The entire redevelopment of downtown SLC is: Five Billion Dollars. The additional 2-3 billion (excluding the mall and condos) is in other development financed independent of the Mormon Church. An organization that spends 20 times more on real estate to develop malls, condos and resorts ($500 million in Hawaii alone) than on helping the poor is, by any definition, a corporation, not a religion. Please note there is dispute on the overall cost of City Creek. The figures range from $1.5 billion for the mall to $3 billion. $5 billion is for the total development downtown. The Mormon church does not open its books, so we have little to rely on for accurate information. We have published figures from KSL and Deseret News - both Mormon owned. Whatever the true figure is, it is in the billions of dollars for high end shopping and condos. It is a great place to buy a pair of $1000 shoes. We wonder how Mormons, of which many are struggling to pay their tithing, feel about a church building a luxury mall.]
3 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!! [TV station in SLC]
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19428181&title=a-look-inside-as-city-cre...
Original Postings for Background to this Story:
Jesus Needs $3 Billion for a Shopping Mall
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon403.htm
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon403a.htm
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon403b.htm
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon403c.htm
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon403d.htm
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon403e.htm
holistic
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL (for the entire development)!!!!!!!!!
I watched that video and I started feeling ill- fakest people...we need to shop shop shop....nothing better to do.
It opens on my birthday too.... what a great present for everyone! I would not want to live there, even if I was still Mormon. I want a yard, peace and quiet, not see people all around the clock. I lived in New York for a couple of months and I did not like it. I like how fat bishop guy said pioneer something or other at the end... the un-american Mormons you mean, retreating to the mountains pulling hand carts?
The gov. needs to bulldoze Salt Lake- of course after it becomes a ghost town. Isn't that City Center built right over top Brigham Young's fav. wife's mansion? It seems like I read that on here somewhere. I am still mad a bit that I went to a university named after that creep. DONG!! Wake up Mormons!
Exmosis
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
"I could shed a tear very easily," he said. "This revitalization is a re-energizing of that great pioneer spirit that permeates this community and permeates this valley."
He's not the only one who could shed a tear. How about all the poor Mormons whose tithing dollars have gone into this business-masquerading-as-a-religion's coffers, when it should have gone to feed, clothe, house and educate their own families?
Mia
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
"We feel terrific!" H. DAVID BURTON
I bet they do! Nothing like pulling off a good scam!
bingoe4
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
Lighting the way for other cities???!!!! Ummm, hate to tell you but Salt Lake is many years behind the whole downtown revitalization idea. Walking to work is all of the sudden avant garde? As always the mormons are a very deluded, full of themselves, exaggeration. Of course Salt Lake has to like it, most visitors would never imagine that downtown is now owned by the mega church and they funded all the down town.
If they own it, should it even be considered down town any longer?
Levi
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
Mormons are so far behind they think they're out in front.
forbiddencokedrinker
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
I wonder if big building projects like these are just a way to quietly transfer gobs of money from church coffers, into the hands of the families of the big 15?
quinlansolo
Re: Bishop is blowing smoke from his ass, that's for sure!!!!
What an idiot; anybody with a sense of business common sense would immediately realize, "there's room for every mall to survive" garbage.
This is not a Tabernacle enterprise that you build with tithing money It is a private sector.
How many people can afford a loaf of 5 dollar bread from Harmons?
That is the real question.
sivab1
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
So many retailers are "moving from the Gateway". I thought the whole schtick was that it was providing NEW jobs-which I am sure there will be as well but what will happen to the Gateway? Lastly, I still do not understand why the members of the church believe that this has nothing to do with their tithing dollars. Where else would the church get the money from? The funding for all of their projects originally came from tithing money no matter how many times it has been washed.
Lucky
Not to gloat but we said 5 BILLION DOLLARS over 2 years ago!
oh, yes we did.
tiptoes
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
Non-profit my patootie.
All those damn exclamation points. ;)
alex71ut
My shopaholic 17 yo daughter disagrees with the sentiments
My 17yo daughter really likes to really get on the case of her LDS classmates about their stupid religion whenever they rip on her for drinking coffee. However now with the opening of City Creek she's planning on going to church every possible Sunday for 3 hours to pay her tithing. Specifically she's planning on attending "City Creek" and spending at least 10% of her income on those stores. She certainly has a testimony of shopping ;)
weeder
H. David Burton forgot to mention one thing ...
Burton: ""Every time I come over here, I think about the vision President (Gordon B.) Hinckley had for this endeavor,"
The "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator" Burton referred to had a _vision_ that this project would cost $500 million ... hmmmm, what else do you thing was wrong in that vision?
... my guess ... financial disaster.
snowball
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
"Every time I come over here, I think about the vision President (Gordon B.) Hinckley had for this endeavor," Burton told KSL
We Thank the O God for a Profit!
BTW @ Holistic - my birthday is on opening day as well. Maybe they've just done this to spite us?
And we are to believe that no tithing funds were used. They must be back in the counterfeiting business then, because you don't just pull $5 billion out of Thomas Monson's ass. Oh right: investments, investments they scream.
Tithing $ > investment > profit > City Creek Center - Amen. I guess it depends on what you mean by "use".
WiserWomanNow
CA girl
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
It would be hard for me to shop there, simply because I'm outraged that money which should have gone to help the poor, was used to build this mall. I don't care if it came from tithing or if it came from the money earned from investing tithing. Either way, people couldn't go on vacation or afford an elective surgery or help out their children struggling through college or, or, or... because they were busy paying tithing to the church. A church they trusted to use it for good - building churches and temples, spreading the gospel, helping those more poor and needy than themselves. Instead, the church invests it and uses the money to redecorate Salt Lake City, a place many of those who sacrificed to pay tithing will never see. They use the tithing funds, properly laundered, to line the pockets of the GA's relatives. Even if they'd just stuck to their original $500 million it would have been better. The downtown would still have been cleaned up and the other 4 1/2 billion could have gone to help others. But that isn't how the church works because it isn't Christ's church. It's the church of man and NOTHING says it more loudly than this mall. Whatever good it does Salt Lake City ... however great the shopping, you'll always have to wonder how many kids died from want of a simple vaccine in a 3rd world country to finance it.
A ANON
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
"By their fruits ...."
The Mormon leadership doesn't yet realize that they have built a monumental testament against themselves!
LDS members have been cleaning toilets in their local wards while their church has used the money it saved to build a 5 Billion Dollar Mall just down the street.
And the Mall is just a beginning; the members have no idea how many more business ventures are out there. When it can get away with it, the church considers it none of their business. But this Mall is too big and obvious.
As Christ said of False Prophets, "By their fruits ye shall know them."
The church has always taken the membership for granted. It has assumed the tithing well would never go dry. But now things are obviously changing.
As the church's investment numbers have gone up, so have the number of LDS resignations! As shrewd as the General Authorities are, you'd think they'd notice the correlation.
anagrammy
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
I'd like to stage a protest where someone stands in front of every single store with a sign
"Clean Water for Batwa, Nigeria"
"Brazil Dump Dwellers Children Learn to Read"
"Clothing for the naked"
"Cookies for those in prison"
"Visiting Nurses for seniors in rural Chile"
"Vaccines for children in Malaysia"
"Food for starving American children in Appalachia"
"Food for starving American children in Heber"
and my personal favorite, in front of Sephora:
"Plastic surgery for deformed children in Latin America"
Anagrammy
Moi
Are the caretakers and superintendents of the mall and apartments assigned to clean each Saturday for free?morning
v
sarahdee
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
"I guess it depends on what you mean by 'use'." Hahahaha
Outcast
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
Truly sickening.
TSCC [this so called church] is nothing more than an organized crime syndicate using extortion of its members to keep the tithing money flowing.
mrtranquility
Sounds like the makings of an inside job.
Follow the money and that tells the story. I have a lot of suspicions that the middle management of LDS, Inc. has probably just shaken down their employer to enrich their good 'ol boy buddies and themselves either directly or indirectly.
The problem is that you CANNOT follow the money, since they are accountable to no one outside the secretive organization. The perfect setup for graft and corruption.
cl2
What shocked me when watching this on several local
TV stations was the over the top expense on top of just the "normal" expenditures--heated floor? Retracting roof? The fountains that were designed by the guy who did some of the ones in Vegas? Ridiculous.
Oh--and the one that really got me (don't know if it is on this video) was "meet me at the fireplace."
fearguiltpromise
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
http://truthmarche.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/church-finance-part-iv/
This link was posted here on RfM a few years ago and I bookmarked it. I'm glad I did! I think someone should do a photoshoped skyline of the city against the mountains and insert three of the Burj Khalifa -Dubai, United Arab Emirates, buildings to scale into the downtown area. It would be truly astounding to see what 4.5billion worth of buildings actually looks like. (The Burj Kalifa costs 1.5billion to build)
weeder
so glad you re-posted that article. Thx
Outcast
Re: 5 BILLION DOLLARS SAYS KSL!!!!!!!!!
To be honest, no other US city has the ability to collect taxes (tithes) from citizens of other cities and states.
Slight advantage to SLC, hmm?
The Salt Lake Chamber says $5 billion have gone into the revitalization of downtown Salt Lake City in the form of the new City Creek Center.
The project is nearly finished, and H. David Burton — presiding bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the man who has overseen City Creek from the beginning
Mia
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
H. David Burton.
His comments were nauseating. Disingenuous. Condescending.
He tried to push every emotional button he could think of.
I am not convinced.
Levi
Uh-mazeing
That's just unbelievable.
Do you think he meant $5B counting the other projects? $5B? Really?
That widow wasted her mite.
myselfagain
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
What a piece of crap that guy is. It is just unbelievable. It is just incredible to me how deceptive and non-transparent tscc is. How much tithe went into that, I wonder?
frankie
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
hard working mormons, some tithing has gone to help the poor, sick, and hungry, but this is the product of most of the tithing money. plus the millions spent on unesscessary temple renovations. Now aren't you mormons proud. this mall is really going to bless the needy of the world
Levi
after I watched the video
It sounds like they are counting $5B for all the current projects downtown.
Mia
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
There are a lot of tithe payers in the ward I left that will never see this mall. Most of them could not afford to shop there.
Many of them are living paycheck to paycheck. Doing without. Some have lost their homes and businesses. They are still paying tithing though.
Nologerin cant login
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
"Though reasonable efforts will be made globally to use donations as designated, all donations become the Church's property and will be used at the Church's sole discretion to further the Church's overall mission."
guynoirprivateeye
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Lots of Buzz-Words there; I noticed he didn't mention any cutting edge technology (energy conservation, for example).
With only 30% of the condos sold... (how many units?) How long might it be until they rent them out?
Looks nice ...that's the TOP PRIORITY, isn't it?
Carol Y.
That's what happens when the middle class is eliminated. The masses of poor people support the extremely wealthy.
The Man in Black
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Jesus finally has a mall worthy of his presence.
God has always instructed his peoples to build shopping centers.
holistic
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
This is most disgusting to sit back and watch, as Mr. so called chocolate eclair bishop is talking I am thinking exactly what you guys wrote...how is this suppose to help the needy- do we really need more material items in our homes. I feel so bad for my Mormon family and where their tithing dollars are going. They are so oblivious. It crushes my heart to watch this kind of stuff take place. Just take a drive through North Salt Lake, Bountiful- aka Mormon Royalty- that's where you will find the homes that need more 'things' in their homes. I dated guys and had 'friends' from there-- disbelief and shock that people just live in mansions left and right-- Materialistic nut jobs. Competition galore as well. They don't care about what we think, it's their neighbor down the road...that is like as far as their simple minds can stretch. Me leaving....serious social family suicide-- so be it-- I am free and so are all of you guys!! their cards will fall, and I pity them.
apatheistnotloggedin
"Jesus finally has a mall worthy of his presence."
That quote is absolutely priceless. Pun intended. I'm going to repeat that to myself 30 times tonight so I have it memorized.
guynoirprivateeye
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Did ChurchCo leak the $5B figure to the C of C?
If I was a church member... I'd be a bit put-off if they didn't tell members FIRST. Oh well.
Backside: most of that $ went into the SLV economy, the building trades: Framers/Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers; architects, inspectors; suppliers list a mile long;
Would a 10% tithing 'requirement' be considered an illegal kick-back? Probably not.
DNA
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Just for some scale and comparison, 15 Billion will get you the largest building in the world, and second tallest.
The Abraj Al-Bait Towers, also known as the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower, is a building complex in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The complex holds several world records, such as the tallest hotel in the world, the tallest clock tower in the world, the world's largest clock face,[2] and the world's largest building floor area. The complex's hotel tower became the second tallest building in the world in 2011, surpassed only by Dubai's Burj Khalifa.
Seems like 1/3 of that ought to get you a little more than a mall and condos in SLC.
DNA
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
And if you watched the video clip of the interview, did the patronizing pat on the back that he did to the woman next to him catch your attention?
Makurosu
Only 30% of the condos have sold so far.. yikes.
He said that Utah hasn't felt quite the depth of the recession as other places, but a recession is also partly what you make of it. I would say that selling a whole lot of condos in the wake of a real estate bust is not a good business venture, and the 30% sales rate (after years) bears that out. I realize he was talking about retailers though.
I think it was pretty honest. They admitted the project was $5 billion (after lying in the DeseretNews that it was only $1.5 billion) and they admitted they have a lot of units to sell.
It's a big waste of money and obviously a money laundering project. They're robbing tithe-payers around the world to pay for a project they can never enjoy, and I think they're also slowing the real estate recovery by flooding the market with these condos that aren't selling.
figeritout
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Thats enough money to build a city under a city.I think they did
grubbygert
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
so... a mall in utah cost over a billion dollars more than this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_Center
StiffNekid
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Thoroughly unimpressed with this City Creek as I look at the magnificent WTC 1. And the condos are mormon standards condos? Can any gentile live there in a gentilic manner?
tillamook
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Watching that video reminds me of a passage I once read as a child and lessons I once learned growing up.
"And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld a great and spacious building and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth.And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine...the great and spacious building was the pride of the world; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceedingly great"
Lucky
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
The Man in Black Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jesus finally has a mall worthy of his presence.
>
and you can bet that He still wont ever show up there.
anagrammy
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
I agree with the person who said it was enough money to build a city under a city.
Jesus is coming back and he needs a really nice bunker to come to. What better preparation for the Last Days but to build a seige hotel under the City Creek Mall which will make the whole thing a subterranean, fortified survival bunker right here in Utah.
This is where Mormon Royalty will go when the masses pour over the land like zombies seeking their food storage and their wimmin. It will be where the oligarchy will rule the world (righteously, of course) under Jesus for the thousand years of the millenium.
Forward thinking, indeed, people have no idea.....
Anagrammy
kimball
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Yes, but they haven't used any tithing money on it.
Rather, they have probably used interest from investments that were made through tithing money, or liquidation of assets procured through tithing money, or some such. After all, what other source of income does the church have from which they can glean $5-billion? Fast offerings? For their sake I hope not.
And the mall will provide lots of extra income that they can claim is "not tithing," and who knows what they'll do with that!
just a thought
Well, the mighty builder called it over a year ago.
IIRC, he said the mall was going to cost around $6 billion, and that everyone knew the $1.5 billion number reported in the local media was bogus. So credit where credit is due.
Outcast
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Exactly, Mia. My TBM ex-wife will continue to live below the poverty line and buy all her clothes from the thrift store living from paycheck to paycheck. No way she could afford to shop there and all the while her tithing $$$ is being funneled to the Morridor while she lives out in the mission field.
TSCC is nothing more than an organized crime syndicate extorting its members to keep the tithes flowing. Truly sick and wrong.
Outcast
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
Pretty sweet when you can legally collect taxes (tithes) from citizens from other US cities for capital building projects in your own city.
And how do people still believe TSCC is a church and not an organized crime syndicate??
fearguiltpromise
Re: Drum roll please... City Creek is $5,000,000,000
http://truthmarche.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/church-finance-part-iv/
I like the effort this guy put into his research in comparison to the Jesus mall. I posted this link on the other thread currently running on RfM.